Statement of Scott Faber, Executive Director of Just Label it, on a letter to President Obama in supporting of GE labeling

Contact: Violet Batcha
(315) 262-5990, violet@justlabelit.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JANUARY 16, 2014 

Washington, D.C. – “Today, more than 200 companies and organizations are releasing a letter to President Obama urging the President to honor his pledge to require GE labeling. In 2007, during a campaign stop in Iowa, President Obama pledged to give Americans the right to know whether they are eating genetically engineered food.

If elected, he said he would “let folks know whether their food has been genetically modified because Americans should know what they’re buying.”

Since he was elected, the President has made it a top priority for his administration to ensure that our food is safe, accessible, nutritious and affordable.

For example, the Obama Administration led efforts to pass the most sweeping food safety legislation since the New Deal. This Administration has worked with business leaders to reduce the number of food deserts and to dramatically reduce the amount of sugar, fat and salt in packaged foods. President Obama and his team have found to make sure than hungry Americans get enough to eat, especially our children, and to help pass new laws that ensure junk food will not be sold in our schools. Most recently, his Administration largely ended the use of trans fat.

But that’s not all. No White House has done as much to help Americans make more informed choices about our food. You made sure that restaurants would be required to give us information about calories, and you worked with the food industry to put more nutrition information on the front of their boxes and bottles.

Giving consumers the right to know whether our food contains genetically engineered ingredients in our food will not only honor the pledge you made to us in 2007. Giving consumers the same rights as consumers in 64 other countries would be consistent with the values that have inspired this administration for five years.”

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